When to use tags vs. empty inboxes

Overview

Prior to using Front, we probably used folders to organize conversations in Outlook and labels to organize in Gmail. Now that we're in Front, we use tags and empty inboxes for our organizational needs! This article will provide you guidance on when you should use a tag or an empty inbox to organize your inbox in the best way.

Using tags

What is a tag?

A tag is a way for you to categorize and organize the types of conversations you have within your inboxes. The best part about tags is that you can gather analytics on any of these categories.

When to use a tag?

Here are some ways we recommend using tags to optimize your workflows:

Customer Type

Use tags to identify when different types of clients email you. We recommend using tags to identify any priority clients, specific industries, or geographic locations. You can then run analytics on the volume of these tags. Some popular ways to categorize and report on your customers are:

Geographic location (LA, EMEA, Midwest)

Company name (Front)

VIP

Tip: Use nested tags to organize your tags. (West Coast and East Coast can nest under your USA tag just like you did with folders/labels!)

Email Type

Use tags to identify the types of emails your team is getting so that you will have analytics on how often you get these types of questions and can make informed business decisions. Here are some ideas on the types of emails you can tag:

Feature Request

Bug

FAQ

Prioritization

Use tags to alert the team when a message needs to be prioritized, based on the urgency of the message. Here are some ideas:

SLA Warning

SLA Breach

Urgent

Star or Flag emoji

Tip: Use highlighted tags to draw extra attention to your prioritized emails and use Front analytics to report on how many times you breached SLA.

Event

Use tags to categorize specific events that are taking place. Here are some ideas:

Campaign

Promotion

Conferences

Actionable

Tags can be used to trigger a rule. This means that a series of events can automatically be triggered with the adding of that tag. Here are some ideas:

Auto-reply: If you are hosting an event, you can use a yes, no, and maybe tag. Based on which tag is applied, a canned response can automatically be sent to your invitees. The rule would look something like this:

When: Conversation Tagged

If: Added Tag is “Yes”

Then: Reply - once - “Yes” canned response

Auto-tag certain clients: You can automatically apply tags to conversations from specific customers and allow your team to prioritize these conversations. The rule would look something like this:

When: Inbound message

If: From contains @clientdomain.com;@otherclientdomain.com

Then: Add tag Client Name and assign to teammate

Tip: You can add multiple email addresses or keywords in the If conditions by separating them with semi-colons (;).

Using empty inboxes

What is an empty inbox?

An empty inbox is an inbox that does not have a channel linked. This means that this inbox does not have email, text, chat, or social media accounts funneling into it automatically. This is an organizational space into which you can move conversations from other inboxes.

When to use an empty inbox?

Here are some ways we recommend using empty inboxes to optimize your workflows:

Escalations for specific teammates

Use this when teammates have specializations that they focus on or messages are being escalated to a group of people within your team. Here are some ideas:

Escalation tiers: Many support teams will create escalation tiers depending on the technical difficulty of a conversation. This ensures that teammates who have specializations can focus on the messages that are relevant to them. You can have Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, etc.

Process specialization: Some teams have individuals who are focused on specific parts of the client journey. You can create empty inboxes for these processes so that teammates know which conversations to focus on.

Inbox Access

Create empty inboxes to make sure that teammates have access to the inboxes that they need to view only. For instance:

Sensitive topics: Create an empty inbox for questions that only specific members of the team should have access to, such as HR or Finance questions.